In the January-July period this year, the ferrous metal smelting and rolling sector in China recorded a gross profit of RMB 29.09 billion ($4.3 billion), down 51.2 percent year on year, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on August 27.
The automotive sector recorded a gross profit of RMB 216.24 billion ($31.9 billion) in the first seven months, down 20.4 percent year on year.
At the same time, the ferrous metals mining and dressing sector, the metal manufacturing sector and the railway, shipping, aerospace and other transportation equipment manufacturing sector recorded gross profits of RMB 28.77 billion ($4.2 billion), RMB 75.82 billion ($11.2 billion) and RMB 86.45 billion ($12.8 billion) in the January-July period this year, up 2.0 percent, down 6.0 percent and up 12.2 percent year on year, respectively.
In July, the ferrous metal smelting and rolling sector posted a gross loss of RMB 2.68 billion ($0.4 billion), signaling the industry has been in serious loss in the given month. Iron ore, coking coal and coke prices have been at relatively high levels, while demand for steel has been slack amid the negative impact of high temperature, heavy rains and typhoons which negatively affected outdoor construction activities. The modest improvement on the supply side has been insufficient to offset the decline in demand, contributing to the declining steel prices and leading to shrinking profitability on steelmakers.
